PB passed on a fun little meme: write a story in six words. It will probably come as no surprise that I’ve fretted over this for more than a week. I want my six-word story to be beautiful and perfect. Unfortunately, this is all I could come up with:
It rained Friday. She went anyway.
I found this exercise fascinating, actually. When given such a severe limitation (“only six words!”), it’s impossible to provide standard story-telling staples, such as “a beginning, a middle, and an end”. (There are exceptions, I suppose, such as the famous, “I came. I saw. I conquered.” Note that in Latin, that phrase actually comprises just three words!)
Articles present another problem. “A” and “the” are wasted words in a situation like this. This makes stories like “the cat chased after the dog” — there are two wasted words there!
As near as I can tell, Caterina started this meme several months ago citing the oft-quoted six-word Hemingway story:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
I don’t normally forward memes, but this time I’ll make an exception to tag Matt, Frykitty, Nicole, Michael, and Rich.
Mother would have loved this. She probably would have done several just for fun. Seems to be a similar exercise to haiku.
I blogged about this back in October. I didn’t have any of my own six-word stories to contribute, but I did relate two of my favorite short-shorts.
two men chopping wood in snow
an unpopped kernal broke his tooth.
an unpopped kernal broke his tooth.
an unpopped kernal broke his tooth.
an unpopped kernal broke his tooth.